Of Phantoms and Death
by Lilla
Summary: Inspired by Martha Wells' 'Death of the Necromancer’ this is a fantasy AU where Aya and the other boys deal with a mysterious serie of events, concerning an evil Necromancer, while furthering their personal revenge against... Reiji Takatori!


**Title:** "Of Phantoms and Death"  

**Author: **Lilla.

**Category:** Angst/Hentai/Mystery/Crossover.

**Warnings:** R 

**Pairings** SxA, others as the Muse wills them...

**Disclaimer:** Lilla snoozes in front of her crappy PC… As usual she talks in her sleep. 'Ohh the Weiss boys… all mine…' She wakes up suddenly and after looking at her PC screen for a minute she starts crying 'Wahahah it was just a dream!!'  

Sorry about the waterworks but all this to say: I don't own Weiss Kreuz nor any of this great anime's characters. I also don't own the book which inspired the plot for this fic. 'Death of the Necromancer' is all Martha Wells' and her publisher's. 

**Author's Note**: Well I just want to add that this piece of fiction will be very fantasy oriented, just like the book which inspired its plot. Unlike the book, though, it will have several serious relationship between two or, coughs, three guys… So please, if that gives you the shivers, don't READ! There will be sex scenes too, fairly explicit yaoi (guyxguy) ones, so if you are too young or offended by this sort of story you might want to avoid the chapters whose rating is NC-17.

Oh, also, I am trying for a historical Japanese background with some fantasy twists and a bit of western traditions thrown in, hope this works out fine.

If anyone wants to **archive** this, hey we are talking about a fantasy setting here, and in a fantasy setting people like my fics enough to want to archive them, just let me know where you are putting it up.

**C&Cers** are worshipped. Please let me know if I have to keep writing this or if you'd rather I concentrate more on my other started fic(s), OK? This is just a trial chapter; if nobody likes it I probably will put this on hold, until better times.

Many thanks to** Sardius**  and   **Nekojita** for the beta reading. For putting up with me they really deserve an accolade, I mean I practically force them to read my stories and that is probably forbidden by the convention of Geneva…  

Character's Thoughts 'Mind-speech' 

Prologue: Act 1 Scene 1 

Schuldig shook out his long, orange coloured hair, feeling ill at ease all of a sudden under the close scrutiny of the impeccably groomed  servants  critically observing his  troupe. He didn't like performing in private houses, especially when a traditional play was demanded by an  overtly rich and self important man like the Daimyo[1] of Aizu. In addition, his planned objective for the night would have rendered many a lesser man totally incapable of facing any scrutiny whatsoever.

It was, therefore, with a great deal of pleasure that the young man observed said servants retiring to the anteroom in order to allow the actors to change into their costumes in peace. 

The redhead grabbed his pack and made his way to a narrow cubicle to the far right of the spacious room, trying to act as casually as possible. 

His obsession with privacy at times such as these was going to serve him well, he thought as he added a couple knifes in matching black leather arm-sheaths to his planned outfit, an ugly thing of the deepest, unrelieved black.  

Schuldig especially disliked the idea of having to hide the shock red hair and his beautiful face behind an ugly mask, as demanded by the No theatre performance they had been contracted for. The fact that he got the role of the ugly demon woman, on top of everything else, could probably explain his reluctance. 

Not that Schuldig was unused to playing a woman's part on stage. Here in Chipango, where women were forbidden to come on the scene, he had been forced to take mostly lead female roles over the years, given his delicate, almost effete beauty. 

So instead of playing Hector in 'Arantha', as he had expected to do back in his own country, where he had  learned the ropes of acting, he had gotten stuck with being Arantha herself. That particular performance was one of the few lead female roles he didn't feel too badly about, as it had marked the turning point in his life by throwing him in the way of his lover. 

Today's performance, however, rankled for  an entirely different reason. He had been given a background role with barely any scene time. The fact that he had personally relegated himself to such, by pleading a fake lack of voice and a genuine dislike of No, for his own purposes, didn't manage to assuage his wounded pride.

_Ran had better make this up to me. Here  am I,  before most of Chipango's nobility in a once in a lifetime happening, such as the daughter and heir of a Daimyo's marriage, and the man comes up with one of his crazed vengeance seeking schemes!_ thought a very peeved  Schuldig, before considering with a sigh that in such an occasion, the guests would hardly watch the play anyway, busy as they would be in political plotting. 

I am not losing a chance for fame, that's for sure; plus as Hanya, dressed all in black, I will be able to slink away after my brief apparition and disable the house wards. 

_I will get all the lead roles I could wish for, and in normal theatrical pieces too! Whereas, if I mess this up, I will no longer have a gorgeous boyfriend to come back to as he will have been fried alive by the damned house wards… And about that, I had better get  my props for the disabling ready…_ mused the orange haired actor while donning the ugly fanged mask he had sadly been contemplating all the while. 

Then, carefully, with the sparse, graceful, and incredibly quick movements  that were his trademark, the young man, now disguised as an ugly old woman, extracted a small black packet from his make up bag and put it securely inside the black silk doublet he was wearing.

_Good thing this character has large fake breasts,_ considered Schuldig somewhat acidly, if resignedly, _or I would never have had the place for the real performance's props…_

It was then that a young and overtly effeminate boy, with pale blond-white hair reaching to mid thigh  and a pair of glacial pale blue eyes, put his head inside the small cubicle the red haired man was changing in. The boy was resplendent in soft rose-coloured silk formal robes and was carrying a beautiful white mask and a black wig with a delicate, sakura-enriched headdress that he still had to don.

The youngster's smug expression nearly made the redhead wish that he had told his lover to go hang, especially as it was followed by the usual demeaning comment the younger performer was wont, through jealously, to throw his way.

"So you finally realised that you are only good for old hag roles, huh Schuldig? " chirped the boy with fake sugary sweetness. 

With the smirk that in his own country had made the redhead famous in villain roles, the man replied, "Well Ukyo-chan, I am an actor. I can do any role! I am not only good for playing the little idiotic catamite like some…" 

As usual, the orange haired man struck true to the mark with his uncanny ability to irritate and all around manipulate his fellow man, the result of a peculiar set of gifts that all in his family possessed,  and the boy went off in a huff.     

It was at that moment that the troupe master called all of them to start the first performance of the evening. Schuldig approached the scene and cautiously peeked out from behind the heavy wine red drapes hanging from the white ceremonial archway that had been chosen as the perfect setting for the performance. 

The number of dignitaries and imperial officers, all of them resplendent in their best finery, was daunting, but that wasn't what Schuldig was looking for. Mindful of possible danger, the young redhead extended his unusual ability to read people's thoughts,  to reach out delicately for the minds of  the less gaudy in the convened assembly. He specifically sent out delicate probes aimed at all the black garbed magi[4] sitting in the tiered room to gauge their level of attention and, if possible without alerting them of his scrutiny, their plans for the evening.

The surveillance was heavy. Apparently ,as many as four of the seven magic users present had been roped into guard duty through debts or promises owed to the host; the others were, however, more of a concern for the telepath, as among them stood the Imperial Magus, Persian the Shining too.

Oh, that is just peachy; there is no way that the man is going to miss the house wards going down, not even using Jey's stone spell. Jey may be the most powerful Mage[5] of the whole of Chipango, and possibly the world's too, but I am afraid I will be busted. Still, there is no going back, we are committed…

Lost in his dark musing, the redhead nearly missed the cue for his five minute long apparition,  much to the amusement of the whole of the troupe, who viewed his talent and success dimly.

Getting his mind back into gear and his mental shields tight around his surface thoughts, the young man entered the sort of trance-like state acting always gave him. Unmindful of his audience, he gave his usual stunning performances and left the scene right on cue. 

When the heady sensation of being someone other than himself abandoned him, the telepath started to become nervous again. Should his distraction have delayed putting in his planned apparition for much longer, he would never have the time to make his way to the central part of the estate for taking care of the blasted wards before the others tried to gain entrance to one seemingly unimportant  storehouse. 

It was nearly with a sigh of relief that the redhead spotted the brunet who was to be his cohort for the evening. A curt _'Move it Hidaka, you are way behind schedule!'_ was sent mentally to the somewhat flustered ex-soldier, who made a somewhat predictable, for him that is, spectacular entrance. 

_Ouch_ thought a half amused, half tickled Schuldig upon seeing the brunette trip on a carpeted step to land  face first right on the bosom of a stiff necked old matron.  As the woman started to shrilly cry that someone was assaulting her, the guards and servants realised just who it was that had dared disturb the entertainment. 

As the young bride's complexion paled visibly, even under the traditional three layers of rice powder, her father's grew an angry red. Reading the Daimyo's mind Schuldig found the man controlling his anger much better than they had expected him to be able to, once confronted with his dead son's lover and cause of disgrace. 

Schuldig decided to exert a little mental push to remind the indignant man of how his beloved heir had chosen suicide rather than risk exposure, by his supposedly money hungry  beloved, of their secret liaison. The fact that Hidaka had also been the daughter's former fiancé had made the supposed betrayal even more heinous. 

Ken had been blameless, as the telepath knew only too well, and had been nothing more than a pawn used to bring about precisely the event taking place now: the marriage of the Daimyo's daughter and now heir, the poor sad Yuriko-san, with Takatori Reiji's son Hirofumi. 

Schuldig's tinkering having provided sufficient fuel to set the Daimyo's anger ablaze, the old dignified man commanded with an imperious gesture to the performers to stop and rose to go  confront the dirty scum responsible for all the pain his family had had to face.

While all in the room waited for the upcoming confrontation, one slender black shadow flitted away from its position near the open curtain and, melting skilfully in the shadows, made good its escape.

Dressed in  black as he was, Schuldig hardly had any difficulty in reaching the central part of the house and then its master's room. There, however, Luck decided to pay the intruder back for her previous favours, as he found himself confronted by two muscular thugs guarding the entrance to the room he had to gain entrance to.

 The actor cum housebreaker was tired, having already exerted his often unused gifts a lot during the course of the evening, to both avoid detection and bring his plan to fruition, but saw no other choice than a little more mental suggestion to make it out of the present fix.

_If I fuck this up, Aya will have my ass in a sling for it … Not that such a situation wouldn't have distinct possibilities,_ mused the orange haired telepath before carefully extending his mind to touch those of the two hulking guards. Much to his chagrin, he only found a complete frightening emptiness where thoughts should have been.

_Did they fear an attack from a telepath and prepared some potions or something to better face it? If that is so, how much do they know about us, to be able to figure out our moves in such depth?_ And even more frightening for the orange haired man, _What if R… Aya is in danger?_  

Reaching for his knives as he fervently  wished for the beloved gun he had had to abandon at home, Schuldig decided to face up to the music and try to complete his assignment.

Hoping his black clothing would mask his movements in the badly lit hallway, the telepath slinked towards the closest of the two guards and grabbed him around the head to silence him, while bringing up his knife to bear at the exposed throat, ready to stab.

It was then that a detail clicked into place in the redhead's mind. His body, isn't it too cold? And he isn't moving! Is he dead? 

A single glance at the man's face, with its open, sightless, glassy eyes, was enough to offer certain proof of the supposition. The other guard was in much the same condition, and yet the person who had killed them had managed to raise no outcry, considered uneasily the redhead. 

The unusual leeway the head was allowed on the neck showed all to clearly that both man had died of a snapped neck, which pointed to a person possessing enormous  strength as the culprit. A culprit who had almost certainly wanted inside the master's room and its precious contents: first of all, the object constituting the seal for the House Wards. 

With an icy sense of foreboding, Schuldig cautiously slid the panel of rice paper covering the entrance open, and stared grimly at the ransacked room.

"Fuck, someone has been here before us!" viciously swore the telepath, once confronted with the sight of the delicate ceramic ball that, according to their source, served as focus for the Wards, lying broken and half crushed on the floor.

*********************************

At that same time, far out into the storage area of the sprawling estate, a ragtag group of unlikely individuals rested inside a dried up moat. At first sight, an observer would have found his gaze attracted by the brilliant, blood red coloured hair of the man that appeared to be in charge of the motley crew. Said man was now hotly discussing with a handsome blond, dressed a tad too nicely to pass for  a farmer, which his companions appeared to be.

"I don't care for this, Abyssinian." Was almost shouting the blond haired, golden eyed man, "That you are this confident with that creature's talents is bad enough, but to entrust in his care our lives! I still maintain that trusting him completely is sheer idiocy!"

"Knight," answered coldly the redhead, "do not oppose my judgement," before turning his back on the man and motioning to an elderly short slip of a woman to come closer. 

As the blond, named Knight, started almost spluttering at the obvious dismissal of his concern his leader had shown, another member of the odd party decided to pipe in, "We aren't trying to get in without having old Momoe-san check for the presence of wards. That should be enough to quiet your misgivings I think, oh Knightly stud!"

The much less flashy and somewhat scruffy brunette got treated to a heated gaze as the 'Knightly stud' tried to recuperate enough calm to manage verbal expression once more.  Before he found a suitable comeback and started a shouting match with his partner in crime, however, the blond found himself treated to an arctic violet glare, courtesy of the party's leader. 

The chilly redhead then turned about to gaze expectantly at the old woman, Momoe-san, whose expression of heavy concentration broke into a satisfied smile as she commented, "Not even a trace of a nasty Magus' ward here, my boy, not even a trace. So shall I start making my way back?"

As Abyssinian  grunted his approval of the situation, and the blond made some derogatory comment about bad tempered redheads and annoying, untrustworthy carrot tops,  it fell to the brunette to answer the posed query.

While a soft smile graced his face at the antics of his companions, the scruffy looking man suggested, "You should definitely make your way back to the Koneko; I think we should be able to go on from here without problem."

Seeing as the leader's faint nod gave credence to this suggestion, the old woman got up from her crouch, gaining very little in the way of height, and started to move away, but not without a final recommendations to the boys. "Please take care, all of you. Do not risk too much, and Rook," the woman added addressing the brunette "please, take care of the two hotheads."

With that parting shot, which elicited a growl from the blond and a hint of a glare from the icy redhead, the tiny woman seemed to vanish into thin air. A careful observer might have noticed a few seconds afterwards some reeds and plants being displaced as if by someone making their way out of the ravine, but the small movements went completely unnoticed by the few guards in the darkness of the night.  

Furtively, the three men also made their move; displacing a few grates from the walls of the dried moat they wiggled inside the small conduct which had once fed water to a well inside a fairly non descriptive and very old warehouse, close to the heart of the estate.

After a  short but gruesome crawl, they finally found themselves at the bottom of the dried up well. Knight got out a long rope tied to a grappling hook ,and managed to throw it around the iron bucket support. After some experimental jerks to see that it would hold, the blond got ready to climb, only to find an impassive redhead motioning that he would go first.

_Oh no you don't Aya!_ Thought the golden eyed man. There was no way he was letting the man who had rescued him from certain death, after he had gotten sentenced to the capital penalty for a murder Takatori's oldest son, Masafumi, had committed, run into a dangerous situation.

Before the situation managed to degenerate in a tug of war, however, the potential fight  was defused by a not amused Rook getting hold of the bone (rope actually) of contention and starting to climb. 

While a spluttering Knight tried to still his natural reaction of giving hell to the man about his  recklessness, the peeved Abyssinian had already started his own climb. The blond had no other recourse than following his companions, all the time bemoaning their pigheadedness, not that he suffered from the same complaint of course! 

Reaching the top, the blond found his two companions looking tight-lipped at the bleeding bodies of a score of guards lying motionless and probably very dead on the unusual stone floor  of the warehouse.

Incredulous at the speed his cohorts had to have used to take those many out that quickly, he found his eyes drawn to injuries not consistent with the weapons the other two man were carrying. All the corpses had had their head bashed in by someone with a disturbing amount of strength.

"Fuck", the blond  brilliantly summed up "Someone got here before us!"

His ever loquacious leader replied with the barest of grunts before pointing out their goal, the hidden safe where the family of the Aizu Daimyo kept the gold that they got out of their shadier dealings,  standing in the middle of the room untouched. 

"If they weren't after the gold, what the Hell did they want?" wondered aloud Rook, meeting his leader's violet eyes with a questioning expression in his own brown orbs. 

"Hn," Abyssinian predictably commented, "We had better get the gold out, now. Rook, see to the safe, Knight, you will cover for him," elucidated the redhead while unsheathing the curved katana from the saiya[2] hanging at his waist.    

"You are not going off exploring on your own!!" almost exploded the other two men as one, all in vain as their leader had already melted in the shadows a couple of feet away. 

With a put upon sigh, the brunette turned to the blond and said, "Well, we got stuck with the pleasant work, disabling several spooky traps, opening up the safe and getting the gold out to the well…" before going to work on the complicated foreign mechanical contrivance.  

Fuming silently inside, the blond stood guard, thinking all the while of possible ways to get back at the suicidal ice block.  Unfortunately, the only thing that came to mind was relating tonight's exploits to one overprotective orange haired gaijin;[3] a possibility that, including a conversation with the  'creature' as it did, hardly seemed feasible. _A little set back… He will regret going around without me…_ Knight considered sullenly.  Unfortunately, he was quite correct on that last point…

*****************************

In the meantime, a frantic with worry for his Kitten Schuldig had made his way out of the master's chamber and back to the area where the play and festivities had been held. 

As he prepared to cross the hallway separating him from the changing room set aside for his troupe, however, he felt the noise of both steps and of unfocused minds coming in his direction.

Quickly, even if disturbed by the thoughts trickling in his mind, as at this point his barriers were pretty much shot to hell,  the telepath looked for a hiding place.  Seeing a sliding door, and daring to hope that the room it led in was unoccupied and not the destination of the incoming party, the redhead entered and slid the panel shut just before three people made their way past him.

The presence of three people had him seriously on edge as he had sensed only two minds coming this way, and indeed even now was unable to pick anything up for the tall, black haired, bespectacled, foreigner man discussing heatedly with none other than the Daimyo and his  mouse of a concubine, a girl the age of the man's daughter. 

"I will contact your dead son for you my Lord, only if you can provide me with both a lock of his hair and a lock of a very illustrious ancestor of yours, like say Susano…" the man was saying, the tone of his voice suggesting that this very same request had already been repeated more than once. 

The reference to the calling on poor Kase's spirit had Schuldig able to place who the man must be. There had been a furor lately in high society about seances and talking to the Dead. The centre of this new rich pastime was a foreigner named Crawford, who apparently was a bit of a seer and a medium at the same time.

Still, something in the demand made by the spiritualist troubled the telepath greatly, _Hair? This is so not good… I might be rusty, but hair isn't used for a simple calling of a spirit… Not unless you are planning to do a little more than talk to it… And that falls in the province of Necromancy, western Necromancy, the most heinous crime of Chipango's law! Now couple this with the broken wards… I had better try to listen in and then get out of here like a bat from hell.  _

"I don't see why you would need hair! It is not as if you can find that around! We give proper burial to those who pass on into another circle of the wheel of life here in Chipango…" replied the high official with disdain for the uncouth ways of the barbarians apparent in both voice and posture.  

"I have given you my conditions…" replied, with fake humbleness, Crawford, letting an expectant pause hang at the end of his sentence.

The sharp displeased tones of the Daimyo, who probably had found himself confronted with an ultimatum for the first time in his life, drifted to Schuldig's hiding place all too easily, "I will not tolerate demands in my own House. Consider any former proposition or offer of patronage to be null and void. My men will see you out of the premises. We will retire for the night; Chimino see to it that Crawford-san is safely escorted back to Edo."

_Well_, considered the telepath, _obviously the old timer has his head on his neck enough to realise that the man is dangerous. Now if I were him, I would be hiding all my departed ones' possessions under lock and barrel after having ensured that the House Wards are in place…  Luckily for us, I don't think he will.  _

_Now I have to get word out to R… Abyssinian that we may have another person hot on breaking in this same night,_ mused the telepath as he tried to reach out for his beloved's mind. 

Making contact proved, however, to be a harrowing experience as all that came through the link was pure undiluted pain…

_Ran!!! No!!_ shouted the telepath's mind. Caution thrown to the wind, the orange haired man ran out  of the room and  into one of the back gardens; all thoughts of anything but reaching his beloved as soon as possible having completely abandoned him.

_Ran wait for me I am coming! _

************************

Ran, or rather Aya as he called himself while engaged in his less than savoury activities, advanced carefully, keeping his back to the wall and his naked blade in front of himself in the relaxed position his foster father and mentor Shion had taught him.

The feeling that something was lying in wait out there kept nagging in the back of his mind.

Moving to the back of the storehouse, the redhead saw a faint white-greenish glow coming from the second room in the storehouse, the older section of the building. Making his way to the source of light, the redhead found a small, hidden chamber whose stone door had been broken through and where some sort of ghost lichen growing on the walls was faintly glowing.

_There were no hidden chambers such as this in the plans of the estate… and it isn't a new addition,_ mused a perplexed Abyssinian, _and that stone plinth in the middle of the room… It held something… Something coffin sized, which has just been removed, considering the dust pattern. Probably the thing the idiot who killed all those guards wanted to steal. Now where did he come from? And how did he know the room  was here?  _

It was then that a faint scuffling sound alerted the pondering redhead to the presence of someone else in the room. Before he could manage to turn around, however, he found himself being thrown against the wall by someone possessing an abnormal amount of strength. 

_Broke a rib_, considered the young housebreaker as he impacted face first on the wall, feeling a sharp stab of pain in his chest area. His sword arm loosing his grip on the katana, the blade clattered noisily to the floor, leaving the redhead unarmed. 

Even as he tried to catch his breath and to stop wheezing, which was doing nothing for his damaged ribcage, he saw a large, greyish hand getting hold of the front of his shirt and found himself held aloft in the grip of a huge creature.  

The thing was huge and well past the first stages of decay. Even before its death, however, it hadn't been human, as evidenced by the remains of one pointed left ear, hoofed feet and its huge misshapen structure. Here and there yellow bone showed through tattered remains of clothing.

_A fey? This looks like one of the things Schu told me about. Malicious, he said, but usually harmless unless tickled off… Now how did this come to be in Chipango, and who…_ started to wonder the young man before finding himself propelled against the wall once more.

_This second impact didn't help my health any,_ considered bleakly Abyssinian, feeling the iron taste of blood in his mouth_, just have to hope the others don't hear the sound of the scuffle,  or there will be three dead bodies instead of one. Wonder just how pissed off Schuldig will be with me for getting myself killed…_

The sequence was repeated a couple more times, the last one almost garnering the monster  a cry of pain from his victim, then blessedly the redhead found himself blacking out. Only too certain that this was indeed it, the young man's last thought was, _And so Takatori does get away with it again. I won't have my vengeance…_ before falling into unconsciousness.

 As he came to, Abyssinian found himself held aloft by the creature; just behind it was a tall black haired man he had never seen before.  

_Is this man the puppet master? Or is he a hallucination?_ Thought almost dreamily the badly beaten redhead. 

It was then that the man stepped into the faint light given off  by the ghost lichen, making his glasses flash dangerously over cold amber eyes.  His disquieting gaze fixed on the battered  features of the younger man, the foreigner demanded in a polite conversational tone, "Did you take it?"

Seeing the violet eyes of this captive narrow in an expression of distrust before becoming cold and calculating, the man almost smiled wolfishly before speaking once more in his formal reception voice, "You had better answer me, or I will have the answers from your dead body."     

A faint wave of his hand signalled his wishes to the hulking monster who once more sent Abyssinian crashing into the wall, almost knocking him out again.

The man approached and, still keeping his collected manner, commented, "Ready to answer my question, boy? If I don't get the answers from you, I will have to go after your greedy friends in the other room and then hunt down the other components of your little band of thieves and cut-throats."

After a little pause to let that sink in, the man continued, "I am sure the Imperial Prefecture would be only too happy to get their hands on the infamous Weiss band…"

That only made the redhead tighten his lips even more. _How can this man know who we are? Is he in Takatori's pay? Then the whole plan of getting him convicted for treason using the Alcyonic gold of the Aizu family will come to naught! I can't let him hurt the others… But I have to know more to prepare a strategy…_

"What is it that you are looking for?" asked the redhead, his voice coming out as a strangled whisper instead of its usual smooth deep tones. 

The man simply shook his head in response to the demand and observed, "I am the one who asks the questions, Abyssinian. You, little thief, are the one who answers… So let me ask you again, where is the missing piece?"

"Missing piece of what?" growled the redheaded man, his small dose of patience having been amply exceeded.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," commented almost apologetically the bespectacled man before gesturing once more to the huge animated remains of the fey monster.

 As Abyssinian steeled himself for another impact to avoid making any outcry, the young thief found himself being dropped instead as an orange blur viciously attacked the arm holding him up with the a steel knife. 

As soon as he had touched the ground, the redheaded man started crawling in the direction of his fallen sword, _fey are vulnerable to iron, there is plenty of iron in my steel katana_, being the reasoning behind the action.

As the wounded thief's left hand made contact with the hilt, however, he found his ankle caught in a steely grip; acting purely on instinct, the redhead turned about and stabbed deeply the decaying arm, almost cutting it off. As the beast howled its discomfort at the mauling it was receiving and loosened its grip, the downed Abyssinian managed to get to his feet, thanks to the surge of adrenaline the thought of his friends and lover being at the mercy of the monster provided.

The situation seemed to be in their favour, immediately evaluated the redhead, seeing that Schuldig was facing off  the black haired man with a knife in his left hand and a gun he had to have palmed from one of the dead guards in the right. Knight and Rook were also holding purloined guns now, trained on the trashing the monster.

With an elegant stroke of his blade Aya  neatly decapitated the animated corpse and turned to the man, his expression cold and hard, with the full intention of getting his pound of flesh for the implied threats to his loved ones, as well as all necessary information. 

"Talk!" ordered the redhead in a raspy voice that had Schuldig throwing a worried glance his way as well as a mental _'Are you all right_, _Ran?'_

Deigning the mental query of a curt _Yes _thought back at the telepath, Abyssinian approached the tall interloper and asked once more, "What is it that you took and what was missing?"

The foreigner deigned that of no answer but simply touched a small rounded pin on the lapel of his formal kimono. The gem glowed with an azure spell-light, however, before the man managed to utter a single word or finish whatever incantation he was using, the loud report of a gun going off was heard.

The black haired man crashed face first to the ground, and under the astonished gaze of all present, turned to dust in a few seconds. The still smoking gun in a pissed off Schuldig's hand was evidence enough of who had decided to intervene. 

Seeing the murderous expression on his lover's face and reading easily the projected _Great, and now wonder who didn't hear THAT_, the violet eyed man sent his way, the telepath commented acidly, "Should I have let him fry you, Aya? That was a golem![7] A sorcerer[8] smart enough to create one can also cast spells using it as a conduit."

Before the orange haired man made his displeasure any clearer, a faintly on edge Abyssinian decided to forestall a confrontation, which previous experience led him to believe he would have lost.

"Let's grab all we can. Every man for himself. Meeting point, the Koneko," ordered curtly the younger redhead, picking up with one of his spare gloves some of the dust from the golem he wanted to bring to their sorcerer advisor. 

"You are injured," replied Schuldig, voicing, much to their relief, the point the other two thieves were leery to bring up. "No way you are making it back on your own," concluded predictably the older redhead.  Before their leader managed any comeback, the foreigner had already picked him up from his crouch close to the golem's remains and had borne him, damsel in distress style, out of the chamber.

Totally disregarding the muttered "Shine, Schuldig" his beloved occasionally uttered, the telepath proceeded to ensure that things would go as smoothly as possible, given his presence, that is, by ordering, "You two, smart guy and idiotic blond, can see to the gold, right? The thing that shines, Yuushi," added the orange haired gaijin directed to the fuming Knight. 

Before the man could manage any smart retort however, the evil creature had already made his way out of the older part of the warehouse and was lowering himself and his precious cargo in the old well.

Grumbling all the way, the blond followed his brunette cohort to grab all they could of the gold they had liberated from the safe with difficulty, before they too made their way out of the estate and back into Edo and the safety of their refuge.    

As soon as the two tired thieves made their way back into the huge townhouse housing both an Ikebana centre and a dojo,[9] they found themselves confronting their already up and about, if a little bandaged, leader. The man was wearing nothing more than a black silk dressing gown a little open at the front, showing off a white expanse of bandages covering a trim torso and the barest hint of a flat, pale stomach.

"Everything went according to plan?" Inquired in a still somewhat off voice the blood haired man. Both older men nodded their heads and would have proceeded with the report their leader usually required, despite their misgivings about his being out of bed, when a slightly put out Schuldig, in a resplendent golden velvet dressing gown, made his appearance at the top of the western fashioned staircase and made his way down diva style.

_The man knows how to make an entrance_, had to concede the younger redhead with a faint trace of a smile. The thought had apparently been picked up as the older redhead retaliated by observing, "You two little errand boys had better get going if you don't want to get an eyeful. I was giving a performance when someone decided to escape from bed and will professionally go on with it no matter what!"

The decided leer on the telepath's face, as well as the deep, nearly full body blush their leader sported, giving a not so subtle hint as to the orange haired man's meaning, both tired thieves decided that the report could wait and that they had an absolute need of urgent rest. 

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FOR THE SAPPY LEMON SCENE GO AT MEDIAMINER… 

The story has got the same title. A determined person is sure to find what he/she is looking for right?  

***************************

So it was that one almost laughing brunette and a grumbling blond made their way hurriedly out of the main room, leaving their poor leader to be pounced upon by his smirking lover.

Later, before drifting off into a peaceful slumber, due to the demands of his battered body, an exhausted Ran managed to open sleepy violet eyes and regard the orange haired man bearing him lovingly to bed. A faint smile touched the younger man's lips at the sight of the stoned gaze his lover was sporting; then opening his thoughts to the touch of the telepath's mind he sent through their link '_Love you too, Schu. As much as I can love… For as long as I live…_'

TBC ?

So what did you think? Is this worth some more work? Or should it simply be abandoned in the universe of the random plot ideas who never made it to finished fic state? To you dear reader the hard decision! 

What the boys said… (in my head, I know I should have it checked, but I like how it works right now.)

(Schuldig's evil review's corner) Schuldig: Please tell her to continue! I want more Aya/Ran/whatever he is calling himself today! 

(Aya Daily) Aya: Takatori shine! I like this fic, I can use my favourite line in it!

(Yotan's Hentai Column)  Yohji: I am this great playboy and the ones who get some actions are those two carrot tops? No, no more, no way!! It doesn't matter that I get to play detective, I want some action! And some scene time too!

Now a few notes for people who don't own a Japanese dictionary, say like me… As well as some explanations on choices of terms.

**Notes:**

[1] Daimyo, a very important person in the pre modernisation Japanese feudal structure say sort of like a Duke.

[2] Saiya the sheath…

[3] Gaijin… Oh well you know that one, I'm sure, foreigner.

[4] Magus, in Chipango a person possessing magical powers who has been trained by a Master of the 'Art'[6] and has been recognised as a Master in his own right. That is to say a schooled wizard.

[5] Mage,  as in a man, a woman is always labelled Witch and never gets any schooling, possessing magical powers but no formal education in the Art. Also used for foreigner magic users, no matter their ability or credentials.

[6] 'Art' as in the Art of Magic.

[7] Golem, magical construct used by a sorcerer to spy or act indirectly, one of the most difficult creations of the Art.

[8] Sorcerer, any type of magic user.

[9] Dojo, well martial art training place, by extension school… 

[10] Well Schu's eyes in the anime are blue but everyone writes them as jade-green… so how about a mix?

[11] I love you as in I love you now and will go on loving you, forever. Not very used in Japanese I think, especially by males. As it is Schu's using it could be due to his having translated literally the expression not knowing the real meaning of it. Or we could also think that being a telepath he knew the meaning and purposely used that expression to describe his feelings. Which one is it? Well I have my own theory you make up yours.

Next from this crazed chit, after she gets her eye repaired before she ends up Farf style, probably With my eyes wide open chapter seven, "And the angle of Death behind me" 


End file.
